Category: Competition Entry

By Rose Politi

FIRST PLACE in October 2025 Competition

The day unfolded in radiant light, the sun gilding the rooftops while a cool breeze slipped across flushed faces. I sat on a low wall along the pedestrian street, resting as my gaze wandered to a group of girls who laughed, danced, and sang. Opposite me, a grey wall adorned with graffiti—red hearts and colorful flowers—had been transformed into a painted frame, a stage for their moments.

The girls posed before it with that unstudied grace only youth possesses. Passersby slowed their steps; some smiled, charmed, while others watched in silent disapproval. But who can draw boundaries around the joy of the young? I wondered.

Two olive-skinned boys, teenagers observed them from across the street. They tried to approach, speaking a mix of French and broken English. The taller one, with dark hair, bright eyes and a tattoo on his arm, proudly showed it to Emi—the girl with long blond hair and green eyes. She cast him a cutting glance and tossed her hair so sharply it nearly brushed his face. Yet he did not retreat; he kept calling her name, as though he had been waiting for her all along.

The sun was sinking, and shadows stretched across the wall of hearts. The girls strolled up and down the walkway, the boys moving in the opposite direction. Then, as if by secret accord, Emi stepped forward a few paces, and he, with a steady stride, passed close by her. For an instant, their shadows merged inside the painted frame. Two figures leaned toward one another, as though their lips were meeting.

And for a single breath, imagination became real.

The End

Judge’s comments – “Chosen for its ability to seize upon the many framings and layerings of a moment, from the play of light to the peculiar sounds of voices comingling in the air. I love the piece’s ‘secret accord’ as – to me – this speaks to the heart of what it means to witness and not merely to see.”

by Val Harris

HGHLY COMMENDED in September 2025 Competition.

when the air sang

with the swoop of swallows

and the whoop of kids

at the end of term 

when the sky beamed

in endless blue and gold

when parks and fields raised

grass and wild flowers

and bees and butterflies

caroused around in joy

when the world was a splash

and shriek in pools and seas

the tap-tap of bat and ball

on sand and grass 

when the air held the taste

of smoky barbecues 

and friendly chatter 

in back gardens 

the dashing of swifts 

high among the clouds

and swarms of passengers

in soaring planes

when parks echoed

with picnics and playtime

and the pavements clicked

to the echoes of footsteps 

when the streets smelled

and swelled with queues for food

and all the world was walking 

and talking and beaming

that was summer

that was summer

Judge’s comments: ADVENTUROUS EXPLANATION OF THE TASK, USING LOVELY WORDS AND SOUNDS. A CELEBRATION.

by Jo Agrell

HGHLY COMMENDED in September 2025 Competition.

She was careless that summer. It was 1976, famously hot and dry. She wasn’t bothered about wilting roses, bone-coloured grass, failing crops or parched riverbeds; she worshipped the intensity, the white glare of the sun. It was too hot to revise. Think of your future her parents said but that was as blurred as the heat haze that shimmered over the roads. In the lunch break she and her friends rucked up their skirts, lay on the tennis court tanning. At 4pm they walked to the lido, slipped into bikinis, held their noses and leapt into the pool. After that they sat around slapping on baby oil, puffing on Rothmans, aware of boys eyeing them hungrily like sharks. She turned nicotine brown. Her hair bleached blonde, acquired a chlorine sheen. Exams came and went. School ended. 

The heat was frying her brain. She grew reckless. Free-loaded concerts. Hitched lifts. Went on dates with strange men. Leaned out of buses as they hurtled down hills. Stood by, accessory to the crime, as a friend stole from an off-licence. She swilled Bacardi and Coke like water. She laughed with anyone, about anything. 

One night she found herself at a house party, everyone off their heads except her. Someone leaped through a French window. Blood like a murder scene. A body unmoving, punctured with glass. No-one noticed. Her hands shook as she found the house phone, dialled 999. 

Finally the weather broke. She flaked like an India rubber to a thin, pale thing. When she looked down the road she was grateful to see a future was still there for her. 

It’s 2025. She takes her grandchildren to the beach. She insists on sun hats, slathers everyone in suncream, seeks out shade. They are standing in line for ice-creams when she catches a whiff of Miss Dior. Briefly, she sees her, the girl she was that summer, flirting with life, flying too close to the sun. 

Judge’s comments:  LOVELY USE OF THE SENSES AND A BUILDING SENSE OF DANGER. I’D HAVE LIKED THE MISS DIOR TO COME INTO THE STORY EARLIER. MAYBE THE I OF THE STORY SHOPLIFTED IT?

by Rebecca Lyon

THIRD PLACE in September 2025 Competition.

Boris watched from the guttering as I moved into that ridiculous house that ridiculously sweltering June. Two up, two down mid-terrace with two under-fives, a baby, two dogs, a hundred boxes of toys and other plastic nonsense and a massive recurring migraine. 

‘Hello darlings,’ our new neighbour said, handing over, inexplicably, a brand-new paddling pool and a huge garden parasol. 

Before I had a chance to thank her or answer the urgent requests for iPad/sweets/ice lollies from my boys, she turned to leave. ‘Don’t worry about Boris,’ she said, looking up at this huge black cat observing us from above, ‘he’s twenty-five.’

‘Is he ok with dogs?’ 

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘He hates dogs. And people. Except Otis Redding. Just ignore him.’ She swept off trailing the smell of vanilla.

Boris watched from the gatepost every time I made a pen for the baby out of boxes and puffed up the paddling pool. Any arguments and Boris would sigh, regally descend, and sit his expansive bottom in the middle of the water to a stunned silence from the boys. Boris was in charge, and they would play nicely.

Boris watched from the windowsill as I cried into the fridge every time there was no food the kids liked, and I couldn’t face getting everyone into the oven-like car and going round the supermarket with hungry screaming kids and becoming one myself.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Bread, cucumber, cream cheese. I’ll check for mould.’ 

I gave Boris a spoonful. He nodded. 

‘They won’t like it.’ I despaired. 

‘Cookie cutters’ said Boris. ‘Stars.’

Boris watched as I took the plates of spongy white stars out. They watched him watching and understood. They ate every single one.

That September the sun shone gentler. My boys started pre-school, and we all made some friends. Boris never spoke to me again, but every Sunday I’d play Sitting on the Dock of the Bay out of the window and he’d nod along, approvingly.

Judge’s comments: I DON’T NORMALLY ENJOY STORES ABOUT ANIMALS, BUT THIS ONE USED THE BORIS THE CAT CHARACTER WELL. I LIKED THE SET UP OF THE PROBLEM, THE SOLVING AND THEN FURTHER RESOLUTION. ECONOMIC DETAILS THAT WERE EFFECTIVE. WELL DONE!

by Dominique Hackston

SECOND PLACE in September 2025 Competition.

Sandy, Heidi and Tina spent the sweltering summer before senior school wearing out the brown, parched lawn of No. 24. Never Heidi’s because her neighbours complained, or Tina’s because her mum was too strict. It was always Sandy’s. She had a cassette player, and her mum used Tupperware to ensure a continuous supply of ice-lollies.

They tanned all summer long while singing and twirling. The first dance the trio learned was Save All Your Kisses For Me, copied from the Eurovision Song Contest. The next was their favourite, Jungle Rock, until The Wurzels hit No. 1 with Combine Harvester.

Music blasted from the windowsill, where Sandy operated her tape player. She claimed her father set this rule, but really, it was an excuse to stand in the shade and pick the songs she liked.

The girls took turns choreographing and performing solos; other songs were group efforts, and all dances ended with sweaty fringes, big grins and a bow. It was a noisy, hot, but harmonious summer until the last day, when Abba’s Dancing Queen got to No.1.

That day, like every day, the sun shone. It was a smite cooler. Tina arrived late, after completing chores and extra homework for her mother.

‘I need Wurzels,’ she pouted. ‘And an ice-lolly.’

‘After you’ve watched us boogie to our new favourite song, Dancing Queen.’ Sandy grinned. ‘Its’s about me.’

‘And me,’ Heidi added.

The two dancers high-fived.

Tina glowered, charged, and screamed. ‘We agreed Wurzels is our favourite.’ And she shoved Sandy – hard.

Tina was ordered home without an ice-lolly. Mum wrapped an ice-laden towel around Sandy’s wrist. Then, licking a lemon icicle, Heidi waved goodbye.

As the heatwave ended, the freeze between Tina and Sandy began. It didn’t thaw, not even after the cast came off.

Judge’s comments: AN ATMOSPHERIC STORY WITH GREAT WORLD BUILDING AND AN ASSURED SENSE OF TIME PASSING. CHARACTERS WERE DRAWN IN A SUBTLE WAY

by Eleanor Marsden

FIRST PLACE in September 2025 Competition.

There was no sound quite like it, that summer: a drowsy, beating buzz that hummed in the ears and serenaded the luxuriating hillside.  Shards of mediterranean shape-shifted beyond the olive trees, cutting the heat with a glistening clarity.

Everything was alive with song. Ochre-striped bees spiralled between petalled heads, marshalled by hoverflies, ignoring beetles shuffling amongst the stamens. Butterflies flirted for position, too, myriad wings susurrating through the air.  I stretched out my fingers until the pads brushed the uppermost reaches of the bank next to me, caressing grass-tips and petal-edges with the whisper of the breeze. I felt the sun heat my face; brushed away the tiptoeing of flies on my skin and ducked from the whining plea of a mosquito.

The unmistakeable helicoptering of a masonry bee faded in, a bauble on wings, careening left and right until the black-blue berry of a body hurtled into view. I watched it scout out the patch of wild flowers alongside me, before defying gravity back towards its hideaway. Startled by this beat-boxing interloper, a cloud of insects rose up as one, leaving behind only the quivering beetles. 

I had just recognised the whirring of a hummingbird hawk moth, a velvet blur crossing the mid-morning sky, when something landed by my feet with a rattle. The grounded cicada proceeded to chirrup indignantly, its pride wounded by the constant shushing of its  fellows. 

No, there was no sound quite like it, that summer…  At least, that’s what I imagine it was like. It’s what I hear, in my head. What we all hear, deafened by the quiet. We wiped out the insects a generation ago, and now, in my short life, in the unfeasible silence, I fill my head with the sounds of the life we lost.

Judge’s comments: LUSH AND OPULENT WRITING, WITH A REAL SUCKER PUNCH ENDING. WELL DONE!